HIGHER AND HIGHER
We thought the ride on Wednesday was spectacular, but the ride for Air Benhaddou to Marrakech was just as amazing.
We began the morning by looking at the 17th century camel caravan center of Ait Benhaddou. From our Airbnb window it appeared to be a magical place with red adobe walls and towers perched on a steep rocky hill above the green valley with water from a nearly dry river making a green oasis in a red valley.
But it turned out, for me anyway, that Ait Benhaddou was magical from a distance but once we enter the the gates and paid our 20 dirhan ($2) the steps to the top of the magical village were through narrow passages and lanes where all we could see were walls and steps and a number of sellers of brightly colored tourist wares. I made it up the hundreds of steps to the top of the village and let Susie climb the rest in the morning heat. And then we came down, buying nothing and seeing very little except for mud walls.
It turned out that the best part of Ait Benhaddou was the view from our beautiful Airbnb with red rugs and mirrored textiles on the walls and a very good rooftop restaurant with a view across the dry riverbed to the fairytale adobe fort.
And then after breakfast we drove up and up into the Atlas Mountains, taking a back road that went up a streambed with pink pastel villages perched above the gardened floor of the valley surrounded by glittering green and white birch trees.
Coming down on the other side of the Atlas Mountains the pastels changed to black rock and soon gave way to the traffic of Marakech. But along the way we found a beautiful open air restaurant where I had a minced meat and egg tangine and fruit for dessert.
When we entered Marakech suddenly the streets that GPS led us into were very, very narrow and we panicked thinking that we were in an area where no cars were supposed to be and no way to turn around when in front of us was a gate with a sign for parking. We took out our bags and the owner of the small car park wedged our Fiat between the other cars there, kept the the key, and then led us to our Airbnb, Riad 111, with a nondescript narrow doorway and a wonderful courtyard inside. We were dead tired and had no idea where to eat and again didn’t want a grungy restaurant, our host at the Riad 111 didn’t know either but looked on line and suggested Limone, a short walk away. Again from the street there was only a small sign and a narrow doorway, but inside we were the last ones without a reservation to get a table in a courtyard amount green lemon trees with paper lighted stars strung in the trees and had a marvelous Italian meal.
It was a very elegant restaurant, one that in Asheville, if such an exotic restaurant existed, would have cost $50 apiece. But we have discovered that high end elegant restaurants in Morocco cost about the same as Taco Heaven in Asheville and that we can afford them. For lunch today, Saturday, we are going to an elegant French restaurant in the more modern part of the city.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 